After a string of three first-place finishes, Amherst College dropped to second place in JBHE’s 2016 survey of Black students in entering classes at the leading liberal arts college. This year Amherst is back on top.

The four African Americans among the 43 Marshall Scholars this year are in sharp contrast to the record of 10 African Americans who were among the 32 American students awarded Rhodes Scholarships this fall.

In the past, the Rhodes Trust did not disclose the race or ethnicity of the scholars selected. But this year the Rhodes Trust stated in its press release that there were “10 African-Americans, the most ever elected in a U.S. Rhodes class.”

Breaking News

Dr. Williams joined the faculty at Howard University in 2003 as an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy. Since June 2016, Dr. Williams has served as interim dean of the School of Education.

Monica Parrish Trent currently serves as instructional dean of the English Language for Academic Purposes, Linguistics, and Communications at Montgomery College in Maryland. She has been on the faculty at Montgomery College since 2000.

In 1978, Beverly Ledbetter was appointed the university's inaugural general counsel and she has served as Brown's chief legal officer ever since. She earned her juris doctorate at the University of Colorado Law School.

Research & Studies

The researchers created fake accounts for students in 124 massive open online courses. The names associated with the accounts were designed to give a strong indication that students were either White, Black, Indian, or Chinese. White males were the most likely to get responses from instructors.

According to a new report by Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, Blacks are 44 percent of the football players in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I but only 7.7 percent of the head football coaches.

The report found that films with casts made up of 21 to 30 percent minority actors enjoyed the highest median global box office ticket sales and the highest median return on investment. Films with the most racially homogenous casts were the poorest financial performers.

HBCU News

Hampton University students held protests on campus over the university's response to sexual assaults on campus. Students also complained about mold, food services, and safety issues on the Virginia campus. The university pledged to address the students' concerns.

The Historically Black College and University Capital Financing Program operated by the U.S. Department of Education allows HBCUs to consolidate their debt into a single package at a lower rate of interest.

The Innovation and Commercialization Center for Entrepreneurs at Prairie View A&M University is part of an effort by the entire Texas A&M University System to take on a more significant role in accelerating economic growth statewide.

People

Taking on new roles are Kenneth Ataga at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Keith Reeves at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, Nadia Ward at Yale University in Connecticut, and Tyrone Howard at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The three honorees are Faye Belgrave, University Professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, Aldon Morris, who holds an endowed chair at Northwestern University, and Jeremy Winston, an assistant professor of music and chorus director at Central State University in Ohio.

Taking on new administrative roles are Tomika P. LeGrande at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, John Barker at the University of Rochester in New York, Yesomni Umolu of the University of Chicago, and Darryl Holloman at Spelman College in Atlanta.

Many American families use the equity in their home to finance the higher education of their children or grandchildren. Since this source of wealth is less available to Black families, this places African Americans at a disadvantage in financing higher education.

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education regularly publishes a list of new books that may be of interest to our readers. The books included are on a wide variety of subjects and present many different points of view.

Andrew F. Brimmer was a respected economist who was the first African American to serve as a governor of the Federal Reserve System. His massive archival collection of papers is now available for scholarly research at the library of Harvard Business School.

Students in a history class at Rhodes College in Memphis spent the fall semester researching the slave trade that occurred in the city prior to the Civil War. As a result of this research, a new historically marker will be erected where Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest sold slaves.

LaShawnDa Pittman, an assistant professor of American ethnic studies at the University of Washington, has established the website Real Black Grandmothers where she presents oral histories of African American grandmothers who play a vital role in the Black community.

Rhonnda Robinson Thomas, an associate professor of English at Clemson University in South Carolina, is creating a museum exhibit that will travel to 10 sites across South Carolina over the next two years.

The technology, which was developed by the research staff in the Center for Advanced Energy Systems and Environmental Control Technologies in the School of Engineering at Morgan State, is an ultra-clean mobile combustor for waste biomass and poultry litter disposal.

They are: Robin Means Coleman at the University of Michigan, Heidi R. Lewis at Colorado College, Nsoki Mavinga at Swarthmore College, Haywood L. Brown at the University of South Florida, Arris Golden at Michigan State University, and Andre Isaacs at the College of the Holy Cross.

Through a combination of academic, industry and regulatory rotations, fellows will develop an in-depth understanding of the drug development process and regulatory affairs processes from the pre-clinical to post-marketing stages.

The honorees are David Crockett of the School of Business at the University of South Carolina, Anjelica Gonzalez of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and the late Carroll F.S. Hardy, a long-time administrator at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

The new center established by a grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration in collaboration with the Carolina Small Business Development Fund, will work to expand small business in the six-county region near the university’s campus.

Taking on new administrative roles are Rica Calhoun at Florida A&M University, Kimberly Ferguson-Scott at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Akua Johnson Matherson at North Carolina Central University, and Lydia Travis at City College of New York.

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education regularly publishes a list of new books that may be of interest to our readers. The books included are on a wide variety of subjects and present many different points of view.

At present, the website offers more than 500 illustrations, photographs, and other archival material. An additional 2,500 items already collected by the MIT Black History Project will be included in the future.

The film, produced and directed by three faculty members in the College of Education at Towson University, presents oral histories of seven Baltimore residents who recount growing up in the city before the civil rights era.

In the spring of 2016, Dillard University announced that it would suspend admissions to its bachelor’s degree nursing programs. Now it has received initial approval to implement its restructured baccalaureate nursing programs for the spring semester in 2019.

The tour features 17 locations on campus that are significant to the history of African Americans at the university. It includes landmarks that celebrate the contributions of African-Americans to the campus and community.

The new grants will support diversity programs and practices on campus that “deepen understanding and engagement across multiple areas of difference, including racial, ethnic, religious, disability, nationality and veteran status, among others.”